Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Table

Among other things,
the Table is a place of repentance.
And no one's repentance is complete.
And it is often still searching for words.

Thankfully this grace slips past our words;
finding its way onto our tongues.

7 comments:

s$s said...

past words
onto tongues

it never got past words for me, unfortunately.

beautifulbeautifulbeautiful Jon.

Jon Coutts said...

sure it did. ; )

thanks.

s$s said...

"this grace slips past our words..."

I don't know what "the grace" is, and thus do not know how it can slip past words.


When I did communion in the past the whole thing was intangible and just words, and nothing seemed to happen. Except maybe my conscience would rise to the fore and guilt would swell.
cracker-bread-stuff and grape juice touched my lips, but did grace touch them as well?

i don't know what the communion ritual does. how is it experienced? what happens?

too many questions.

i'm not seriously asking you to know the answer to these questions. just using your comment-box as a forum to "voice" these questions.

I am fascinated by Christian ritual.

Jon Coutts said...

fair enough. I'm playing along a bit is all, and I suppose I'm just suggesting that, despite the way the ritual has been reduced by either failed words or cheapened symbols, the presence of Jesus was not bound by reductions or banalities. Grace touching tongues here would refer, I guess, to the presence of Jesus in a person's life. Presuppositions about what that should feel like to be real are not necessarily all they are cracked up to be. You know?

Dale Harris said...

awesome. (of course it took words to express how grace slips past words... but that's a discussion for another time maybe)

Jon Coutts said...

I don't know if it took words to express it. That painting does a better job doesn't it?

Jon Coutts said...

Matthew, I suppose I also want to say that the grace is received in faith, and so what I'm trying to express is not that I felt it slip past my words or something like that, but that I believe the promises attached to this ritual and do not have to be able to articulate anything or have it all together to receive. I literally just have to receive.

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